I hope we can all say amen to that. Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? Thou only doest wondrous things.
Emily, don’t be startled. It’s just on my heart this morning to say that this young man that was born—the Lord brought him here and spared him. He was only a few pounds when the Lord brought him into this world. I feel so impressed this morning that the Lord has called him to a purpose, to raise him up to be a man of God. Now may the Lord fulfil His word this morning.
Our children are precious. The Lord has a purpose for them—not just to get all they can out of the world and live a pleasureful life on this earth, with all the education, cars, and houses. The Lord wants them to grow up to be children of God; not only children, but sons, coming out to do the Father’s business, as our Lord declared when He was in the temple at the age of twelve.
So my heart this morning is as much for the young as it is for us older ones, because the Lord is coming soon. And the Lord has made it pretty clear that we need to be ready, that we cannot just drift along and let things come into our lives without consequences.
Lord, we do come to Thee. Lord, we thank You for the mighty God You are: the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful God, who reigns and rules over this earth.
Lord, grant us this morning that we might have eyes to get a glimpse of the One who will come on that white horse, His vesture dipped in blood, and on His thigh written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Lord, give us a glimpse that we might humble ourselves before Thee and become the men and women of God, become the sons of God that You have called us to be. Lord Jesus, may we be a people ready for Your return.
Lord Jesus, remove the veils from our hearts, the weakness from our eyes, to see Thee. Lord, break through the lethargy. Lord, break through the passivity. Break through all the trials in our lives that tend to cloud our minds and hearts when we try to consider the Lord Jesus. Now this morning, Lord, open our eyes to Thee. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, let’s begin. Really, if you didn’t hear the message last week, you’re going to be a bit lost this morning, so I’ve got to do a little bit of review. We have been sharing out of the life of Abraham, particularly Genesis 18, on Abraham and Lot, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This has ended up being a two-parter, so we will be continuing what we shared last week.
And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do;
Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation,
and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
For I know him.
And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great,
and because their sin is very grievous;
I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it,
which is come unto Me; and if not, I will know.
And Abraham drew near, and said,
Wilt Thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once:
peradventure ten shall be found there.
And He said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.
And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom:
and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them;
and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground.
And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides?
son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters,
and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:
For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord;
and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said,
Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city.
But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.
And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying,
Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here;
lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand,
and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters;
the Lord being merciful unto him:
and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.
Escape for thy life; look not behind thee,
neither stay thou in all the plain;
escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my lord:
Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight,
and Thou hast magnified Thy mercy, which Thou hast showed unto me in saving my life;
and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:
Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one:
Oh, let me escape thither, is it not a little one? and my soul shall live.
The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain,
and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord:
And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain,
and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain,
that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow,
when He overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.
Well, last time, as briefly as I can be, we saw that God is a God of grace. We know He is. We have experienced His grace because He died for our sins. But we need to know that God is also a God of judgment. When evil reaches its fullness—and only the Lord knows when that is—God brings judgment.
Now, often we look at judgment as being a negative thing. But, as I tried to share last week, judgment finishes what grace begins. Judgment is the final cleanup of the Lord, removing all of the evil and all of the sin. It is the final cleaning of the Lord, and in that sense it is very positive. For those who do not respond to His grace, then judgment will take care of it.
That is one of the ways of the Lord. You remember Noah and the flood. God’s judgment came upon the whole earth because the evil of men was so great that their thoughts were only evil. There was obviously no hope, or God would have waited. Grace was no longer working in the people of the world, so the flood destroyed the earth.
Then we see this judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah for the same reason. There will be the day of the Lord at the end of the great tribulation. Judgment will come. The seven vials of the wrath of God will be poured out on this earth. There will be the judgment seat of Christ for Christians—only for Christians. There will be the judgment of the nations. There will also be, after the thousand-year reign of Christ on this earth, the great white throne judgment.
So we see that the Lord is the Lord of judgment, and He can judge because He is a righteous Judge. The Lord says, “Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord.” It is not ours. Vengeance does not belong to us. We can never righteously display vengeance; only the Lord can do that, because He is righteous.
Yet we see that even in judgment, God is a God of mercy. He raised up Abraham. He went to Abraham and said, “Shall I not share with Abraham, whom I know, what I am about to do?” So He began to share His heart with Abraham: “There is something on My heart, Abraham. I am going to have to judge Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Abraham immediately responded and said, “Lord, will You destroy the righteous with the wicked?” He said, “If there be fifty righteous in that city, will You destroy it?” The Lord said, “No, I will not do it for fifty.” Abraham negotiated with the Lord and got the number down to ten. “If there be ten righteous in that city, will You destroy it?” And the Lord said, “No.”
Abraham became the intercessor that God is always looking for before He judges.
Brothers and sisters, one of the points I made last time is that the church is to be God’s intercessor. That is what the prayer meeting is about on Wednesday night: that corporate intercession before the Lord. He is coming soon. We need to be praying. He is going to judge this earth.
He needs to have many righteous ones, and we need to be praying for the release of the gospel. We are the salt of the earth. The only reason it is being preserved is because there are still Christians here. He wants us to pray for the unsaved, for His purpose to be fulfilled, for His church to be built, for us to be matured into sons, and that His bride might be made ready. He is looking for that intercessor.
The reason I know that Abraham became an intercessor is in Genesis 19:29: “God remembered Abraham,” and He pulled Lot out before judgment came. God remembers everything. This matter of prayer is a bit of a mystery to me, but God does listen to prayer. God does look for an intercessor. That is part of His ways, and we need to become intercessors at this time.
At this time of judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham was still a stranger and a sojourner on this earth. He was still living in a tent, up on the mountain where the Lord had met him. But Lot had become a dweller.
Interestingly enough, it says in the beginning that Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. He did not immediately move to Sodom, but it attracted him. That is why he went down there in the first place, thinking, “Hey, this will be a great place to settle down. It is a rich land. I can grow crops, I can feed the cattle, and it is great.”
But eventually we find that he actually moved into the city. Not only that, we find him at the gate where the heads of the city would meet to do business. So he was quite involved with this city. He had become a dweller, not a sojourner. He compromised his spiritual life once he started moving toward Sodom.
And what does Sodom represent? It represents the world and the ways of the world. Once he started living that way, once the world became precious to him, the things in Sodom he enjoyed—that way of life, different from what he had been called to, to be a stranger and a pilgrim on this earth—his heart became very attached to those things, to this life, and to this world.
When the angels came to warn him, they told him to save his family and anyone else he knew, because they were going to destroy the city. His two daughters were apparently engaged, so he went to the two who were to be his sons-in-law. But it was as though he was mocking them.
In other words, the testimony of Jesus in his life was not there. He was what you would call a worldly Christian, a carnal Christian. There are Christians and non-Christians, and Christians are broken into two groups: spiritual and carnal. He was basically a carnal Christian, living in the world, enjoying the world, and not really thinking about God much.
When he went to his sons-in-law, there was no living, real testimony in his life, and they just laughed at him. “Who are you, Lot? You are just like us.” I did this last time, by the way. I cannot ever get my mind off Abraham. Maybe that is a good thing. I do not want to associate with Lot so much. He is a brother, according to the Word, but anyway.
When the angels came, the men of the city came around his door. They were ready to break in. They wanted to violate the angels. That is why it is called Sodom. It was an evil city.
Think how much Lot had compromised the lives of his two daughters and his wife by living there. Thank you—Lot. Oh, Lord, help me. Please deliver me from this. At least you are listening; I will tell you that. You are catching my mistake.
Think about what happened. Lot went out to the men of the city when they were looking for the angels. He said, “Look, I have two daughters. Do not touch these men. I will give you my daughters instead.” I think that is pretty horrible. I do not know of anybody in this room who would do that with their daughters.
But you see, Lot had compromised his life. He had gotten his family into this position. His daughters were at risk. The angels were at risk.
The next morning, the angels got ready to get Lot out, and it says Lot lingered. Do you know how attached you are to the things of this world? Lot lingered. After all of this, he was still lingering there. He did not want to leave.
Then it says the angels actually had to grab their hands and pull them out. It is like they almost had to arrest Lot to get him out of the city.
Even when he got out of the city, it is so interesting. He said, “I cannot go to the mountain.” Now, that is where he should be. Abraham is on the mountain, and Lot is down in the city. But Lot said, “Let me go to Zoar.” It was a smaller city there.
Actually, the Lord had planned on destroying all those little cities, but Zoar was spared because Lot went there. Lot said, “No, no, no. I am in more danger going up to the mountain than here.” I do not understand.
You see the kind of thinking we get into when we live a compromised Christian life? We do not think straight. We think evil is good, and good is evil. I think we are seeing that extremely well in this nation today.
Finally, after all that, the Lord poured out fire and brimstone upon the cities. As they were escaping, Lot’s wife looked back in direct disobedience to the Lord. But she could not resist, because everything that was being destroyed meant everything to her. That was her life.
She looked back, and she turned into a pillar of salt. Think about Lot again. Lot lost everything he held dear in his life, except his own life and the lives of his two daughters. That is what he had. He had no relationship with the Lord, no life with the Lord—just living for the things of the world. And he lost it all in the hour of judgment. It was gone.
Now we need to read 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.
For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble;
each man’s work shall be made manifest:
for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire;
and the fire itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is.
If any man’s work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss:
but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.
That last verse—“If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire”—is the summary of Lot’s life. Brothers and sisters, we do not want that to be the summary of our lives.
If it were not for the passage in 2 Peter 2, where it declares that Lot was a righteous man, I would never have believed it. It actually says that Lot was grieved while he was there. But the world so held him. Do you know how much the world can hold us? Even though he was grieved, it still held him there. It was his life.
I would have to say, when you really consider Lot, if the Lord Himself had not shown us in the Bible that Lot was a righteous man, we would never have believed it. But this shows you how merciful God is to those who have been saved. Lot was a saved man. He was delivered from the judgment.
Let us go to Luke 17, the only other Scripture, I think, in the New Testament that refers to Lot.
For as the lightning, when it lighteneth out of the one part under the heaven,
shineth unto the other part under heaven;
so shall the Son of man be in His day.
Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot;
they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven,
and destroyed them all:
after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed.In that day, he that shall be on the housetop, and his goods in the house,
let him not go down to take them away:
and let him that is in the field likewise not return back.
Remember Lot’s wife.
Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it:
but whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
Lot’s life was in Sodom, and he lost it.
This is, of course, prophetic Scripture about the day of the Lord, when the Lord returns as lightning. It is a prophetic word, and Lot is used as an illustration not to look back.
Technically, this Scripture applies to the Jews. At the sound of the last trumpet, God will reveal Himself from the cloud as lightning. His appearance will be an appearance over the whole world. It will be the day of the Lord.
At the end of the great tribulation—Jacob’s trouble, as it is called for the Jews—the nations will gather around Jerusalem to destroy it. The Lord will come down and land on the Mount of Olives, and there will be a great earthquake. But this earthquake will make a way of escape for the Jews who are in Jerusalem.
The battle of Armageddon is on. It is the day of vengeance, the day of the judgment of the Lord. The Lord is warning the Jews: do not linger; do not look back, or you will be lost in the judgment. This is really a prophecy for the Jewish nation, for Israel, for the Saviour who will come and save them from total destruction.
When He does, He will pour out His wrath upon the nations on this earth. But there is a lesson here for Christians as well. Obviously, looking back is not a good thing.
Before I share the lesson for the Christian in this prophecy, we need to know the difference between the great tribulation and the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is God’s wrath—God’s judgment.
Satan has determined to usurp God’s plan. God’s plan is to have a bride for His Son. God’s plan is to have a kingdom on this earth for a thousand years, in which He will reign and rule with a rod of righteousness—the utopia that mankind has always been looking for.
There will be no social evils, plenty of food, and no poverty. Even the wildness of animals will be taken away. The wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the nations will turn their weapons into ploughshares. There will be peace—utopia.
The enemy is dead set against Christ having His kingdom on this earth. He is doing everything to restrain it and destroy it. He knows that the only vessel on this earth that can undo his plan is Christians—the church. He cannot touch the Lord anymore, so he goes after us. He is after the Christians; he is after His church.
Revelation 12 says that Satan is standing before the woman, the church, ready to devour not the woman, but the man child in her womb. These are overcomers in the church. I do not know how to say it more simply than Christians who love the Lord and obey the Lord. That is an overcomer. That is as simple as I can make it.
They are not necessarily the great orators of the past in the Christian faith. They are just simple believers who love the Lord and are following the Lord. They may not even know the prophecies, but they know the Lord.
Satan is ready to devour the man child when he comes forth. But at the birth of the man child, something happens. Before the enemy can do anything, the Lord, as a thief in the night, will steal them away. They will be raptured to the throne.
That is Revelation 12:5-12. Then it says that once the overcomers are raptured to the throne, there will be war in heaven—or in the heavens, I should say: the atmosphere around the earth where Satan and all his demons dwell. It will be between God’s angels and Satan and all his troops.
If you read Revelation 12:11, it says, “Woe to the earth, for the devil has come down with great wrath.” In other words, he will be cast down to the earth. That is the cause of the beginning of the great tribulation. When he is cast down, all evil is upon this earth, and the Antichrist and the false prophet will be raised up.
Satan will be the power behind these two men. These will be actual men on this earth. One will be called the Antichrist; the other, the false prophet, able to do mighty miracles. That is the great tribulation. It is the trial that is going to come upon this earth. In some places, it is called the time of testing, and it is because of Satan.
At the end of the seven-year period of the great tribulation will be the day of the Lord—the day of God’s judgment, the day of God’s vengeance. He will come with wrath upon all those nations gathered around Jerusalem. He will take the Antichrist and the false prophet and cast them into the lake of fire, and He will chain Satan for a thousand years.
Now that is the vengeance of the Lord. That is the day of the Lord. The great tribulation is because of Satan’s resistance to Christ and His plan to have a kingdom on this earth. The day of the Lord, however, is God’s wrath poured out. It is God’s judgment. So they are different.
The judgment is done in order to clean things up and prepare for His thousand-year reign on this earth. That is what that judgment will be about.
So what is the application back to Abraham’s life? Abraham was up on the mountain when the judgment came. Lot was down in the valley, and he barely escaped because the Lord pulled him out. In other words, Lot was saved from the judgment, but he suffered great loss because he lost everything he held dear in his life, except his two daughters.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord has exhorted us that we need to follow Him. We need to be those who love Him. We cannot just drift through our Christian life, living like the world, and not suffer loss. We will.
The loss we suffer is everything that we have held dear and hung on to. We will be tried as by fire. Wood, hay, and stubble will be burned up. We have often heard the words, “barely saved.” Barely saved because we are the Lord’s, and He is always faithful to what is His.
We need to turn to Revelation 14 now, because this is a great picture of this period that we are about to enter into. We will look at the first four verses to begin with.
And I saw, and behold, the Lamb standing on the mount Zion,
and with Him a hundred and forty and four thousand,
having His name, and the name of His Father, written on their foreheads.
This is Mount Zion. The King is on Mount Zion, so this is where the Lord is, up on the throne. With Him are 144,000, having the Father’s name written in their foreheads. These are the overcomers we talked about in Revelation 12.
They have the Father’s name written in their foreheads. In other words, they are a testimony. They are a real testimony to the Lord and to God on this earth. That is why it is written in their foreheads. Everybody can see it. They are the Lord’s. They are easy to recognize.
I do not want to confuse you. This chapter is written during the great tribulation, or somewhere near the end of the great tribulation. The overcomers we see in Revelation 14 include two groups.
The first group is those we saw in Revelation 12. When the Lord comes as a thief in the night, at the beginning of His parousia, He draws out those who are ready. That is the man child we see in Revelation 12. That is the beginning of what we call the Lord’s return, or His parousia, because it is a series of events.
During the great tribulation, those Christians who did not make it out when the Lord pulled out the firstfruits will remain. Many will see and be awakened to what is going on. Many will repent. Many will follow the Lord.
That is why it says that after the dragon misses the man child, he turns on the woman. He goes after those who hold the testimony of the Lord. There are going to be those whose hearts, because they see what has happened, will really be turned to the Lord and give themselves back to the Lord again. They are found on the mountain as well.
But what I want to emphasize, because we have not yet come to that period, is that we should be overcomers: followers of Christ, obeying the Lord, that we might be taken as the thief in the night takes the firstfruits.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of a great thunder:
and the voice which I heard was as the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
and they sing as it were a new song before the throne,
and before the four living creatures and the elders:
and no man could learn the song save the hundred and forty and four thousand,
even they that had been purchased out of the earth.
I just wanted you to be sure that they are still at the throne.
These are they that were not defiled with women; for they are virgins.
These are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
These were purchased from among men, to be the firstfruits unto God and unto the Lamb.
Basically, that means they were not defiled. In other words, they had no other lovers. Christ was their love in life. They are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes. In other words, they obey the Lord.
Listen to this: they are the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. Firstfruits are always the ripest. You know, when the tomatoes came in, I was looking forward to that first one. It was so good. Nothing like a Hanover tomato with that acidy flavour in it. He is always looking for the firstfruits.
They are the firstfruits. They are the ones who were taken at the beginning of the parousia. They are found on the mountain, on the throne.
Now why are they there? Why were they allowed to escape and not have to go through any of the trial, any of the tribulation?
Luke 21:36 says, “Watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass.” Revelation 3:10 says, “Because thou didst keep the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of trial.”
Watch and pray. If we are not having a watchful heart and a prayerful heart before the Lord, He is saying that we might not be found worthy to be raptured out initially, as a firstfruit.
The other matter is keeping the word of His patience. What is that? It means that the Word of the Lord is effective in your life and that you are enduring. Even with all the hardships, trials, and temptations in your life to get into the world, you have resisted and kept the word of His patience. You have kept the Word. You have patiently kept it. You have endured all the way to the end.
In other words, these overcomers made it to the throne at the beginning of the Lord’s parousia because they were found worthy, and the Lord lifted them to His throne. Our brothers call them the welcoming party for the Lord, and I think that is marvellous, because He is going to make His way back to the earth.
Now go to Revelation 14:9.
And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a great voice,
If any man worshippeth the beast and his image,
and receiveth a mark on his forehead, or upon his hand,
he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.
That shows us that this is during the time of the great tribulation, because that is when men living here will face a one-world government, so to speak. In order to buy and sell, you will have to have the mark. Today, that is easy to do. All they have to do is put your name in the computer and say, “Oh, they are a Christian.” They are not going to be able to buy and sell.
It is going to be a difficult time for Christians and pious Jews.
Let us go to Revelation 14:14.
And I saw, and behold, a white cloud;
and on the cloud I saw one sitting like unto a son of man,
having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand sharp sickle.
And another angel came out from the temple,
crying with a great voice to Him that sat on the cloud,
Send forth Thy sickle, and reap:
for the hour to reap is come; for the harvest of the earth is over-ripe.
And He that sat on the cloud cast His sickle upon the earth;
and the earth was reaped.
This is the harvest—the harvest of Christians. You should note that at this point the Lord is back at the cloud. He has left the throne with His overcomers and has come down to the cloud. He puts in His sickle and reaps the rest of the harvest. He already has the firstfruits; now He reaps the harvest.
This corresponds to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, where it says that at the shout of the archangel and the sound of the trumpet, the dead in Christ will arise first, and then those who are alive and remain—speaking of Christians—will be raised up.
This is at the end of the great tribulation, just prior to God pouring out those seven vials of wrath upon the earth. The Christians will be raised. This fulfils Romans 5:9, which says, “We shall be saved from wrath,” speaking of Christians. In 1 Thessalonians 5:9, it says, “God hath not appointed us unto wrath,” speaking of Christians.
In other words, the whole church at that point will be raised. They will not experience the wrath of God; they will escape it. There are no conditions placed upon Christians at this point. It does not say, “If you watched and prayed,” or, “If you held the word of My patience,” or, “If you followed the Lamb whithersoever He went.” It simply says that you will be saved from wrath.
That is like Lot. Lot was not following the Lord, but at the end he was pulled out. Praise the Lord for that. That is God’s mercy.
And another angel came out from the altar,
he that hath power over fire;
and he called with a great voice to him that had the sharp sickle, saying,
Send forth thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth;
for her grapes are fully ripe.
And the angel cast his sickle into the earth,
and gathered the vintage of the earth,
and cast it into the winepress, the great winepress, of the wrath of God.
And the winepress was trodden without the city,
and there came out blood from the winepress, even unto the bridles of the horses,
as far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
That is Armageddon—the battle of Armageddon at the very end. But the believers are gone at that point. The pious Jews have been given a way of escape by the great earthquake.
Some might say, “Well, since the whole church is going to escape the wrath of God, does it really matter how I live?” I hope that by looking at the life of Lot, and understanding a little more about the judgment seat of Christ, we see that everything will be tried. The wood, hay, and stubble will be burned up.
We can suffer loss, but the loss we will suffer is the things that we hold precious on this earth. Remember, the Lord said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Basically, brothers and sisters, if our treasure is here on this earth, it will be a great loss to us.
While the Lord is still on the cloud, there will be the judgment seat of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:10, it says that each will receive the things done in his body, whether good or evil. Then there is the passage in 1 Corinthians 3 that I read earlier.
Now listen to this. Does it make a difference?
Revelation 2:26: “He that overcometh, and he that keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations.” Revelation 3:21: “He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne.” Revelation 12:5 says the overcomers will rule the nations with a rod of iron. Revelation 20:6 says they shall reign with Him for a thousand years.
The marriage supper of the Lamb, a thousand-year reign of Christ. In other words, those who are found worthy at the judgment seat of Christ will reign and rule with Him for a thousand years on this earth.
In Matthew 25:10 is the parable of the virgins. Remember the ten virgins? Virgins in the Bible are always referred to as Christians; they cannot be unbelievers. So we have ten, but five are wise and five are foolish.
When the Lord comes, it says the wise ones have plenty of oil in their lamps, and they are able to go out to the Bridegroom. But the foolish did not have enough oil. Oil is the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.
Are you allowing the Holy Spirit to work in your life, to transform you into the image of Christ, to be a part of the bride, to be a part of that corporate expression as well as an individual testimony on this earth? Are you?
The foolish ones did not have enough oil, and they had to go out and get more oil. But the wise ones went in, and the door was shut. That is the marriage feast of the Lamb. The wise ones were able to go into the marriage feast of the Lamb, but the foolish ones had to go out and get more oil.
In other words, they needed more of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. For a thousand years, the Holy Spirit will work with them to get them ready. When you get to Revelation 21, with the New Jerusalem, all the Christians are there, all the Old Testament saints are there, and it is all glorious. There is no spot or wrinkle.
So during those thousand years, He still has mercy and grace. He will get those who were not able to make it to the marriage supper of the Lamb ready, and they will be a part of the bride. That is the mercy of God.
No one left behind—at least no Christian left behind. Praise the Lord. Brothers and sisters, the Lord is committed to you. He is committed to me. The issue is: how committed are we to Him?
When you became a Christian, you were given an inheritance. The glorious thing is that the Lord is our inheritance. But part of that inheritance is to be a real part of His kingdom on this earth during the thousand-year period.
During that period, the Lord will have restored the earth the way He intended Adam and Eve to live on it in the beginning, before sin entered. It will be a marvellous time. Christians who have been following the Lord will rule with Him over the nations, so it will be a busy time.
But remember that Esau gave up the blessing and the inheritance for a bowl of soup—venison soup or something. I happen to like venison, by the way. But he did not consider the inheritance as something precious to him, and so he willingly traded it for this bowl of soup.
This bowl of soup represents the world in your life. What are we doing, brothers and sisters? Oh, we have a great inheritance in Christ.
Overcomers are those who simply love the Lord and obey Him. Their heart is not attached to this world and the things of this world. They are strangers and sojourners.
The Lord was very clear. He said, “I am going to leave you in the world, but you are not to be of it.” In other words, it is not to be you, a part of you.
Living a compromised Christian life has consequences—serious consequences. When we are not following the Lord, I think we put others in jeopardy, just like Lot did with his family.
When we are not following the Lord, the only thing we have that is precious to us is the things of this world, and they will be burned up. What will we have at the end?
It talks about those who were not able to enter into the marriage supper, of weeping and gnashing of teeth. My own interpretation is that it is tears of regret. Once we see the Lord face to face, once we see what His kingdom is, and are not able to participate in the way the Lord designed for us, I think there will be tears of grief and regret. It may be more, but I think at least it will be that.
I do not say this to discourage anybody. Brothers and sisters, anyone in this room, including the younger ones, can be an overcomer. It does not matter the age. If you love the Lord and obey the Lord, you can be an overcomer.
It does not mean that you understand all these prophecies or have all this knowledge. It just means that you know the Lord, you love the Lord, and you follow the Lord. The things of the earth will no longer be that attractive when you do that anyway.
May the Lord show us in this last hour what He is after. Brothers and sisters, He is not after people who have all the prophecies down in order, who have all the events figured out. What He is after is those with hearts for Him, those who have that first love for Him, and who just love Him and want to obey and follow in the light He has given them.
Lord, we come to Thee today. Lord Jesus, we see the tragedy of Lot’s life. We see Abraham, who, though he had many failures, many problems, and his faith was not always that strong, had a vision of You, Lord, and he followed You. He remained a stranger and a pilgrim all the days of his life.
Lord, when he left this earth, he only had a grave plot, but he had the promise. Lord, he had a vision of the Christ. He had a vision of that city. He had it, Lord; it was his. The earth and the things of the earth meant nothing.
Lord, we have to come before Thee today and say, “Lord, only Your light can show us where we really are with You.” We ask for Your light to shine in our hearts. Lord, we pray that You get us ready.
Lord, we pray that You will get our eyes off all the things of the world, the business and trials of life, that we will really turn our hearts towards Thee in these days. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.